The Florida Panthers are making another big swing in goal, and this one comes with real consequences for the rest of the roster.
Florida is nearing a deal for New Jersey Devils goaltender Jacob Markstrom, according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that forward Evan Rodrigues is expected to be part of the return, and LeBrun added that no salary was retained on Markstrom’s contract.
The full trade, per LeBrun, will send Rodrigues, Jesper Boqvist and Ben Steeves to New Jersey in exchange for Markstrom and forward Angus Crookshank. Rodrigues, Boqvist and Crookshank each have one year left on their deals, while Steeves is set to become a restricted free agent.
The move comes just days after Florida acquired Akira Schmid from the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday, a pair of goalie moves that points directly toward Sergei Bobrovsky hitting the open market on Wednesday. Bobrovsky’s final year in the seven-year, $70MM contract he signed with Florida in 2019 ended with a career-low season in 2025-26.
That downturn was jarring given what Bobrovsky delivered across the bulk of the deal. The 37-year-old posted a save percentage above .905 in four of the seven seasons, including a .915 mark in 2023-24, when he also led the NHL with six shutouts.
That year ended with Bobrovsky backstopping the Panthers to the 2024 Stanley Cup. He carried that into 2024-25, finishing the regular season with a .905 save percentage and five shutouts before helping Florida win a second straight Cup.
But injuries and lineup changes dragged him to a career-low .877 save percentage in the 2025-27 season, the worst of any goaltender with at least 50 games played this season, even with four shutouts on the board.
Now Florida is turning to another veteran in search of a reset. Markstrom, 36, finished this season with 23 wins and a .883 save percentage in 44 appearances, a career-low line after back-to-back years above .900.
He’s still only five years removed from his best NHL season, when he put up a league-leading nine shutouts, 37 wins and a .922 save percentage in 63 games for the Calgary Flames in 2021-22. That performance made him the Vezina Trophy runner-up behind Igor Shesterkin and marked just the second time in his 16-year career that he received Vezina votes.
Florida will be hoping a new environment, plus better play in front of him, can help Markstrom rebound in the back half of his career. He also brings some familiarity with warm-weather hockey, since he began his career with four seasons in Florida.
In that span, he recorded 11 wins and a .898 save percentage in 43 games with the Panthers. Over 16 NHL seasons and 578 games, Markstrom has averaged 37 wins and a .907 save percentage per 82 games played.
He is beginning a two-year, $12MM contract signed with New Jersey in October, 2025, and his $6MM cap hit fits into a Panthers picture that is already using nearly all of its available space.
For New Jersey, the return brings useful depth and some edge. Rodrigues has spent the last three seasons rotating through Florida’s middle six, and his scoring has slipped each year.
He opened his Panthers run with 12 goals and 39 points in 2023-24, then finished this season with 11 goals and 31 points. Even with the drop in offense, he still averaged 17 minutes a night because of his defensive value and penalty-killing work, traits that made him a steady answer through Florida’s injury stretches and should now help the Devils on their third line.
Boqvist also leaves Florida after carving out a clear role. He finished second on the Panthers with 141 hits last season, a reflection of the physical identity the club built around him over the last two years.
Used mostly on the fourth line in 2025-26, he produced 13 points in 73 games, his lowest full-season scoring total in the NHL. Still, at nearly 28, he could keep growing into a dependable bottom-six piece.
Across seven NHL seasons and 387 games, he has averaged 22 points and 114 hits per 82 games played.
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